The Gemini Divergence (30 page)

“That is out of the question,” snapped the
general, “If we purposely draw blood, it would be another Pearl
Harbor. If the American public were alerted to our presence, they
would then stop at nothing but our dismal demise… Why do you think
that I demanded a change in the saucer markings? Do you realize how
the public would react if they actually got a photograph of an iron
cross on a saucer?”

“But Herr General,” continued Schwerig, still
unrelenting, “If you want the American Government to keep our
presence a secret, but still bring them to the table; we will have
to do something very drastic, something that will put them in so
much of a bind that they will beg us to stop, so that they may
maintain the secret for their purposes, not ours.”

“I agree, Oberst Schwerig, but we must not
purposely draw blood… You must develop a plan that does what you
just proposed while still upholding the caveats that I demand.”

Schwerig grimaced for a moment as he
contemplated his new order.

Then Kreutztrager added, “It must be
something spectacular. In order to make them come begging to us, it
must be something that we were not even able to accomplish during
the war.”

Schwerig stood silently for a moment as he
watched the construction crews, then he turned and smiled at the
general.

Kreutztrager began to smile as well, as he
could tell that a light had just come on in Schwerig’s head, and
that he had just thought of something.

Schwerig then snapped his heels and came to
attention, “Yes, Herr General, I’ll submit my plan as soon as I can
put it to paper.”

19 July 1952

Twenty minutes before midnight on Saturday,
in Washington D.C., air traffic controllers at Washington National
Airport spot objects on their radar screens.

The objects were flying at speeds and
maneuvers that would be impossible for conventional aircraft, so
the shift supervisor called in radar technicians to check the
equipment.

The shift supervisor then called the radar
station that was being operated by the Air Force on the other side
of Washington National Airport, and asked them if they could see
the objects as well.

As the other radar operator was reporting
back that they were indeed tracking some very strange objects, the
shift supervisor then looked out the window and visually sighted a
formation of extremely bright discs flying over the city.

When the formation began circling over the
White House and the Capital, the shift supervisor immediately
called Andrews AFB, ten miles away, to alert them to the intrusion
of our air space.

He was shocked when the Andrews tower
reported that they hadn’t noticed the objects over Washington,
because they had been distracted by the objects that were buzzing
their base repeatedly at incredible speeds.

A Capital Airlines pilot was sitting at the
end of the National Airport, growing perturbed that the tower was
not forthcoming with clearance to take off. When he asked why he
was not getting his clearance, he was told by the tower to “look
over the damn city, fool.”

As the pilot gazed over the Capital, he was
horrified to see lights in every direction that he looked,
traveling at speeds he had never witnessed, and doing maneuvers
that he had formerly believed were impossible.

A plane that was in the air circling to land
was frantically calling the tower to report that it was being paced
by a couple of saucers and wondered if they could see them.

The tower reported back that they were indeed
tracking the objects escorting the incoming flight, as well as a
multitude of other objects.

As the shift supervisor was comparing the
visual sightings from the tower to the blips on the screens, he
noticed that when the objects took off at high speeds, they
disappeared from the radar screen.

The radar was most easily tracking the very
slow moving objects.

Then the Andrews tower called the National
tower and asked them if they could see the object that was hovering
right over the top of a radio tower between the two airports.

They confirmed that they could.

National asked Andrews why they haven’t put
fighters into the sky. Andrews replied that they were not on call
that night and their planes were down for maintenance, but they had
just scrambled fighters from Newcastle AFB in Delaware, and they
should arrive any minute now.

When the F-86 fighters arrived and announced
their approach to both towers, the sea of spectral lights parted,
and the objects all flew away at great speed.

Neither tower, nor the fighters could see the
objects any more… They had just vanished.

The fighters circled for a few minutes until
they reported to the towers that they were low on fuel and had to
return to base.

To the horror of both towers and the pilots
of the fighter planes the objects immediately appeared again, as if
they had just materialized.

Some of the objects were strafing the
disembarking fighters as if they knew that they had to leave.

One of the pilots remarked, “I haven’t seen
anybody do that since the war, and the Germans would do this to us
when they knew that we had run out of fuel and had to leave.”

One of the towers remarked, “I think that
whatever they are, they are listening to us talk, because they came
back the instant you guys reported that you were leaving.”

The objects continued to harass the area
until the Sun started to rise. Many local residents that were
getting up in order to go to work, walked out to see the
objects.

Reports came in from civilians all over the
area that they indeed, looked like discs, and that when the sun
rose they all ascended into the sky until they disappeared.

*~*

“No missile tests. Not yet.” Insisted Lemay
as he was being led on a tour through Redstone Arsenal by Von Braun
and Volmer

“But why not?” Von Braun inquired abruptly,
“We have the capabilities now… we must launch a satellite. How else
will we know if we can launch our own space station, or deliver a
nuclear weapon to the Soviets?”

“But when you play poker, you don’t place
your bets ‘after’ the cards have been played,” insisted Lemay, “If
we keep testing the way that we have been, inside of the conus, we
will be just fine, but if we launch out over the oceans, or even
worse, into orbit, the Germans and the Russians will see it as
sword rattling and undoubtedly escalate in response.”

“But the testing that we are doing now,
launching rockets straight up and down, is no better than throwing
hammers into the air without a hard hat. We are learning very
little about ballistic guidance.”

Volmer piped in with, “We could use the
satellite to monitor the German space station.”

Von Braun pointed to Volmer in agreement then
turned to Lemay to add, “Yes, he is right, we can do many things
with a satellite. We can communicate with the German station
without talking over the public radio waves.”

Lemay stopped walking and turned to look at
Volmer, “Is that true? Is that possible?”

Volmer happily responded, “Yes, general, we
could transmit on military band or on a telephone transmission
frequency, or even the new television frequencies, many things are
possible.”

Von Braun interjected, “we could install a
blinking light transmitting Morse code for Christ’s sake.”

Lemay held out his hand with his cigar in his
fingers almost ready to say ok, when suddenly, he put the cigar
back in his mouth and said, “NO!”

Lemay started to walk away from the two
scientists as Von Braun yelled, “What if the Russians launch a
satellite first?”

Lemay turned around and said, “I’ll make you
a deal, I’ll worry about ‘that’ …’then’,” turning again and walking
away.

Von Braun turned to Volmer and asked, “Is he
always this difficult?”

Volmer responded, “Frequently.”

*~*

There was a knock at General Samford’s door
at his office for the Head of Air Force Intelligence at the
Pentagon.

The general replied, “Enter,” and in walked
Captain Ruppelt.

“You sent for me sir?”

“Yes, I sent for you. I thought that you
arrived this weekend.”

“I did, General, I have been in town for two
days now.”

The general then started shouting, “Well then
what the hell have you been doing for two days? It’s Tuesday, and I
have yet to hear a report from my UFO officer about what the hell
happened over the Capital this weekend.”

Ruppelt looked bewildered as he then
reluctantly asked, “What happened this weekend, sir?”

“What the hell have you been doing boy,
boozin’, girl chasin’? You mean to tell me that I fly in my premier
UFO investigator, during the biggest flying saucer invasion in U.S.
history, over the U.S. Capital, and he is here in D.C. the whole
time… everybody and their damn brothers’ talking about it, and you
missed it.”

“Flying saucers sir… here?” nervously asked
Ruppelt.

General Samford picked up a newspaper from
his desk and threw it towards Ruppelt, “I thought that an
investigator was supposed to give stories to the papers, not get
their stories from the papers.”

Ruppelt glanced at the headlines, “Flying
Saucers over the Capital, No answers from the Air Force.”

The General then resumed his scolding,
“Captain Ruppelt, I am the head of Air Force Intelligence. Every
damn paper, politician and general in the whole damn country has
been ringing my damn telephone off the hook for the last two days
about UFOs, and all my best UFO investigator can say is ‘What
UFOs?’ What the hell am I supposed to think about that?”

Ruppelt now stuttering, “I’ll get right on it
general sir, I’ll start this instant.”

The general then snapped back, “I need that
report ‘Yesterday!’, and If you don’t happen to have it on you now,
I better not hear that door hit you in the ass on your way out to
get it.”

The next weekend, the entire ordeal repeated
itself. The American media began to refer to the pair of weekend
events as the ‘D.C. flap’.

*~*

It had been two years since Gus was promoted
to Buck Sergeant. Now he was a Staff Sergeant and Jack was a Buck
Sergeant. They both had their own crews now and only got together
when they were learning about new projects with Volmer.

“What the hell are we doing here at the
Redstone Air Field?” asked Gus

“We came to help Dr. Wundt with his
wullenweber.”

“Wooly what-er?” joked Jack.

“Wullenweber,” reiterated Volmer, “That is
the German term for what you Americans call elephant cages. Dr.
Wundt is a paperclip scientist that came over on the same boat as
Dr. Von Braun and I.”

“Why do, ‘we’, call them elephant cages?”
asked Gus.

Volmer then explained, “Because, they are
large round antennas that resemble animal pens.”

“Why are they round?”

“Because they were originally designed to be
directional receivers, they were round, to have the ability to
receive from every direction. But they soon found out that like
most other electrical devices; that which receives may also
transmit. These cages can transmit directional beams of
exceptionally strong microwave bursts.”

“Like the microwaves used in Radar?” asked
Gus.

“Yes, but much stronger, these may actually
be used as a weapon. That is what we are here to demonstrate. Dr.
Wundt has built a large one in Alaska, but General Lemay wants us
to find out if we can make a more portable one.”

Then Volmer pulled a large mason jar full of
popcorn out of his car trunk, along with a box of facial tissues
and a box of rubber bands, “I thought that you boys might find this
demonstration of the power of microwaves amusing.”

Gus and Jack watched as Volmer put some of
the popcorn into a facial tissue, then wrapped it up like a hobo’s
bag and closed it with a rubber band. He then handed it to Jack and
told him to throw it up in front of the radar antenna that they
were parked beneath.

Both boys looked at each other very curiously
and then Jack wound back and threw the bag up in front of the
rotating radar dish.

When the bag apexed in front of the radar
dish, all of the popcorn instantly popped, and then fell to the
earth like snow.

Volmer started to explain the science behind
how microwave energy worked, but when the popcorn started to fall,
both boys looked at each other with sudden euphoria and instantly
started to construct more bags.

After a minute or so, Volmer realized that
the boys were not listening to him anymore, so he looked to see
what they were doing.

By that time, both of them already had an
armful of bags and had started to throw them as fast as they could
in front of the radar dish.

The observer in the field tower called out to
his supervisor, “Hey boss, you remember when you told me to tell
you if I see something strange, since that ‘flap’ in
Washington?”

“Yeah, so?” asked the boss as he lifted his
field goggles to view the area that the observer was pointing
towards.

When he did, he saw the spinning radar dish,
then suddenly, multiple white explosions like fireworks. He watched
as the remnants of the aerial displays descended to the ground to
look like snow.

“What the… Is that snow?”

“It’s July boss,” commented the observer.

They both continued to watch as they saw two
young men jumping up and down throwing something into the air, then
more explosions of tiny white objects.

“Should I report it sir?” asked the
observer.

“Yeah… to the FOD walkers.”

*~*

Sometimes, one regrets what they ask for; and
now Major Hanson, formally Captain Hanson from White Sands, was
regretting ever asking for any duty station outside of the desert,
for now he had been stationed out in the middle of the Alaskan
Yukon, at yet another remote detachment.